About This Activity

Overview

This Family Tree Builder Kit makes it easy to organize an engaging family vocabulary focused communication activity for students. 

With these materials, students can practice communicating in English after memorizing as few as 22 vocabulary words.

This is an information-gap activity, one of the three activity-types that are part of the task-based language teaching methodology.

 

Activity Presentation Phase Instructions

 

Family Tree Builder Cutouts Printable

Family Tree Cutouts

 

 

 

Download Printable Materials

 

 

Preparation Instructions

Printing

    Print all materials in a kit onto printer-friendly cardstock. 300g cardstock is recommend.

     

    Activity Set-Up Instructions

     

    Preparation

    Layer 1: The 1st (top) layer of the builder shows the structure of the family tree. The orange areas are to be cut off and discarded before the layers are glued together.

    Layers 2-4: The 2nd to 4th layers are middle "gap" layers to create space between the 1st (top) layer and 5th (bottom) layer. This space will make room for the "character tiles" to slide into their intended spaces.

    Like the 1st layer, the orange areas on these layers are to be cut off and discarded before glue is applied to the pink areas.

    Layer 5: All but the pink areas of the 5th (bottom) layer will be visible and will show users where the "character tiles" are intended to be placed.

    Glue should also be applied to the pink areas of the 5th (bottom) layer, but nothing should be cut from this layer.

     

    Construction

    The 5 layers should be carefully glued together from top-to-bottom to create a modular family tree builder.

    It is recommended that the layers be glued together in the following order:

    1. Glue Layer 4 to Layer 5

    2. Wait a minute for the glue to dry

    3. Glue Layer 3 to Layer 4 (which will already be glued to Layer 5)

    4. Wait a minute for the glue to dry

    5. Glue Layer 2 to Layer 3 (which will already be glued to Layers 4 & 5)

    6. Wait a minute for the glue to dry

    7. Glue Layer 1 to Layer 2 (which will already be glued to Layers 3 & 4 & 5)

    8. Leave to dry for up to an hour

     



     

    Activity Set-Up Instructions

     

     

    How To Use

    Groups: These materials are designed for practice in pairs. Pairs can be composed of two students or a teacher and a student can form a pair.

    Materials: One (multilayer) Family Tree Builder, one set of Character Tiles, one Family Tree Card

    Time / Game Round: 3-10 minutes

     

    • Partner One must complete the Family Tree Builder using the provided Characters.

    • Partner Two must answer Partner One's questions about the family members on the Family Tree Card, but must not show the card to Partner One.

     

    How To Play

     

     

    Words to Learn Before Playing

    The Core Vocabulary Words listed below are all words that students should learn BEFORE playing this game. Students will only need to learn the words listed for a specific set of cards to play this game with that set of cards.

     

    Core Vocabulary Words Used in Activity
    Materials Set A beard, blonde, blue, brown, dad, daughter, glasses, green, hair, long, mom, mustache, orange, pink, purple, red, shirt, short, son, sweater, white, yellow

     

     

    Words to Learn While Playing

    The following words will be used to the play this game (with every available set of cards). However, these words don't need to be pre-taught. These words can and should be learned WHILE playing the game.

     

    Vocabulary Best Learned In Context
    Used With All Sets a, and, correct, does, doesn,'t, have, he, is, it, no, she, this, yes, 

     

     

    Sentence Patterns to Use While Playing

    The following sentences and sentence patterns are recommended for use while playing this game. The best way to teach these sentences, is to use them in context while introducing the game and demonstrating how to play it.

     

    Standard Sentences and Sentence Patterns
    Does _________________'s _________________ have _________________ _________________.
    Yes, he/she does. / No, he/she doesn't.
    Is it correct?
    Yes, it is. / No, it isn't.